Can a BIOS permanently go bad? (K8N Diamond Plus related)

[fixmarky]

Did a BIOS webupdate via MSI Live Monitor for my K8N Diamond Plus and got a Bad CMOS error on restart. I didn't think it was a big deal until the next time I restarted- my system hung at a blank screen while my DVD drives began seeking on their own.

Ok, next step was to reset my CMOS with my system unplugged- still the same hang ups, in addition to my PC restarting on its own when I turned it off (all the system restore settings in BIOS were how they should be)

So I take things further and flash an older version of the BIOS in DOS, bootdisks and everything, then top it off with a CMOS reset....and I still get the same hang ups and checksum errors when I start my system.

Random note, probably irrelvant: I lost all my Firefox bookmarks and the search bar is no longer functional. Maybe just an odd coincidence, but maybe not? I dont see how a bad BIOS could corrupt Windows though.

Anyways, does anyone, preferably with a K8N Diamond Plus, have any suggestions as what I could do or what could be wrong? I think I have most of my bases covered but I could easily be overlooking something obvious.

I really don't have the time to call MSI for tech support during the week, so if all else fails I'm hoping I can RMA it.

Thanks for any help.

 

[cker]

Yes, a CMOS/BIOS chip can go permanently bad. I had to buy a replacement module for an old board of mine a couple of years ago.
I think I used http://www.biosman.com/replacement.htm but don't recall. This is only an option if your CMOS/BIOS chip can be removed, not if it's permanently affixed. If it's a new-ish board MSI ought to remedy it.

BIOS checksum problem should not have anything to do with your bookmarks or search bar. All the BIOS stuff will be considerably lower-level and doesn't have any 'awareness' of that application-layer stuff.